Coventry City look set to lose one of their brightest talents, Bassala Sambou, to the Premier League after the Academy striker turned down his first professional contract offer.

The prolific striker has reeled off 25 goals this season - 12 in the under-18 league, nine in the FA Youth Cup and four for the Under-21s - but is refusing to sign for the Sky Blues despite being told he has a ready-made career path into the first team which could come as soon as the pre-season.

The 18-year-old player and his advisors feel he should be in and around Tony Mowbray’s squad now and it appears that a top-flight club is looking to snap him up.

The manager, now resigned to getting the best possible compensation deal for a player who is out of contract this summer, said: “I like Bassala – he’s actually quite a humble young guy and yet we find ourselves in a situation where it has been indicated to us by his advisors that he’s probably not going to sign a new contract.

“It happened last year with Kyle Spence who was offered a deal, decided not to take it and went off around the UK trialling and having a look.

“Bass had a pretty good youth cup this year, scored some goals and caught some interest. Bigger clubs than Coventry City look for young English players with potential and the way the game is at the moment there’s an opportunity between scholarship and first year professionals to go and jump ship.

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“The only protection we would have is compensation so if anyone wanted to take him there would be issues because of his training over the last six or seven years, whatever it is, I think he came to us aged 11.

“It’s frustrating because I think the career path would have been good for him here. Can he see a way into the first team here at Coventry? He should be able to.

“I know he was a bit concerned, or his advisors were using it really, saying why isn’t he in the first team now. And as the manager I am telling him he’s not ready.

Bassala Sambou celebrates his goal against Arsenal

“He’s a boy who has lots to learn about where to run, when to run and how to get physically strong enough. It’s OK scoring goals for the 18s in the youth cup but it’s a big jump from the 18s to the Under-21s and it’s not as if he’s scored bags of goals in the 21s, let alone the jump to the first team.

“So it’s a bit of impatience, I think, but it’s out of our hands. They have intimated that they are not going to look to re-engage. We have made them a more than fair offer, I would have to say, because we recognise his talent.

“I have had a long chat with both his advisors and him about his career path, hopefully to our first team, and yet it’s been intimated that he’s not going to sign.

“It’s disappointing, it’s frustrating but it’s part and parcel of life and we’ll end up doing the best deal we can wherever he ends up going, or the tribunal people will and we move on.”

Bassala Sambou and Zander Diamond

Asked if he believes Sambou has a club lined up, he said: “I don’t know, it depends on how his agent is working. You can never prove these things but there’s every chance his agents have been talking to people behind the scenes.”

And Mowbray has warned that the ex-Cardinal Wiseman schoolboy who joined the Sky Blues Academy from Coventry Jaguar junior football club could end up being a small fish in a big pond rather than getting the opportunity of a direct route to first team football this summer.

“Potentially, going into a squad of 20 Under-21s at a Premier League club where he might not even get a game for their 21s, never mind their first team,” he said.

“But there’s a fair chance with Bass this next season that he’d do all pre-season with the senior squad, probably play some first team games in the pre-season and if he did well who’s to say he wouldn’t do what Marcus Rashford has done at Man United and stick himself straight in our team.”